China Policy Institute Blog

Written by John Morgan and Bin Wu. China’s Ministry of Education has announced a major reform of the National College Entrance Examination, known as Gaokao. Under the proposed changes, the entry of new students to higher education will no longer be based purely on performance in three major subjects: mathematics, Chinese and English. It will …

Written by Huang Wei. China’s State Council recently issued Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Admission System ([2014] No.35), which outlined the forthcoming reform in higher education admission. The guiding principle of the proposed reform is to enhance the fairness and efficiency of the selection of talent. Pilot reforms will start in 2014, expand …

Written by Ketty Chen. “Stop Colonial Assimilation Education! Give us back our curriculum!” on an early morning late last week, members of aboriginal rights groups and organizations gathered outside of Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE) and ch

Written by Shuai Zhao. It is possible that 2013 will be remembered as the beginning of a fundamental shift in the way China views the English language. The decision, publicized in October, by Beijing’s education authorities to reduce the weighting of English in the annual college admissions test, the gaokao, provoked a predictably fierce debate over …

Written by Bin Wu. With respect to the social life of international students in the UK and other western countries, a common scenario for students from mainland China (hereafter Chinese students) is for them to study and live together, resulting in so many small and closed “circles” with little time or opportunity to engage with …

By Wenjin Long. “Half of rural primary schools have disappeared between 2000 and 2010 and such a trend is still an ongoing process”, says Twenty-first Century Education Research Institution [resource link here], a NGO based in Beijing. The rapid decline of primary schools in rural China draws our attention to the reasons behind the decline …

By Samuel Beatson. As a PhD student focusing on the Chinese financial markets, I was curious and attended an Open-Space Workshop last Thursday 1st November with the theme: Promoting and practising global citizenship in Chinese society. I guess a majority of more than 100 student attendants shared a similar feeling to me. They had been …

By Mike Bastin. China’s higher education system, and its business education in particular, continue to produce record enrolment figures. However, the report challenges the quality of the education provided, especially at China’s business schools. Worryingly, the report points to a clear disconnection between education content and business needs. It is this apparent yawning gap between the country’s …

By Mike Bastin. Currently, there are only one-hundred Chinese language teachers across the whole of the United Kingdom (U.K), a pitifully low figure. Yet, it was only in the autumn of 2010 when the British Government announced publicly a new partnership withChinato train one-thousand Mandarin teachers for secondary schools. Even though the British are notorious …

By Cong Cao. A feature in the Qianjiang Evening News, a Chinese newspaper in Zhejiang, has caught my eyes: On February 28, the University of Nottingham at Ningbo admitted Feng Yang, an 18-year-old self-educated Chinese, into its doctoral program in education after an on campus interview. It is not unprecedented that universities worldwide admit young …

About China Policy Institute Blog

The CPI blog provides commentary and analysis on current events in China and East Asia. It aims to provide multiple perspectives from academics and practitioners across the globe. Blog posts reflect the views of individual authors not the CPI.
Knowledgeable readers interested in contributing to the blog are encouraged to contact jonathan.sullivan@nottingham.ac.uk. You can also find the CPI on Facebook (/ChinaPolicyInstitute) and Twitter (@UoNCPI). For updates on current events, commentary and recent scholarship on China follow me on Twitter @jonlsullivan